


Be My Mistake

by lgbturtle



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Broken Hermione Granger, Damaged Draco Malfoy, Dark Hermione Granger, Eventual Smut, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Fluff, Happy Ending, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Healing, Hogwarts Eighth Year, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Jealousy, Mentions of Suicide, POV Draco Malfoy, POV Hermione Granger, Past Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley, Post-War, Recovery, Romance, Self-Harm, Slow Burn, Smut, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-25
Updated: 2021-02-25
Packaged: 2021-03-13 22:00:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29657916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lgbturtle/pseuds/lgbturtle
Summary: When the night finally comes where she decides to end it all, when she is so close to finally no longer feeling any of her pain- someone stops her.And for the first time, in a long time, Hermione accepts help. From Draco Malfoy of all people.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy
Comments: 2
Kudos: 10





	Be My Mistake

**Author's Note:**

> TW: this chapter, as well as the rest of the book, includes talk of suicide and attempted suicide. just a reminder that you are loved and treasured and that you are worth it <3

_Bellatrix’s eyes stared straight through her._

_Hermione could see her body lying limp in her arms. She looked completely helpless. And she felt completely helpless. Never in her life had she felt so out of control, of everything. She was a floating conscience. She couldn’t feel her body. She could see it, but the only reason she knew it was there was because of the digging in her neck. Bellatrix’s wand._

_“Cruicio.”_

_Hermione’s body sprung to life as she screamed. Her eyes widening at the pain and then squeezing shut. All she could see was red. There was nothing. No one, nowhere—all she knew was pain. Pure, unfiltered pain. The only escape Hermione could imagine was death. Death would mercy her; she needed death. It would save her.  
It was terrifying how fast those thoughts always came to her. _

_But she could only hope that someone would avada her and save her. Maybe Harry or Ron would, they would do that for her. Wouldn’t they?_

_No. No they wouldn’t._

“No, no, no! Stop! Shut up!” Hermione screamed through tears, hands raking through her hair and down her face. 

It was probably about 3 in the morning, and she stood on the edge of the astronomy tower. She curled her toes over the edge and pulled her fingers tight into her palms. 

She didn’t have any other choice. She couldn’t take them anymore. The stupid fucking nightmares. They were there every damn night. Every night she hoped that maybe it would be the last. Maybe if she had a good day, they would let her rest. But it always happened again, night after night. This was her only way out.

Every time she closed her eyes Bellatrix was there, waiting to torture her again. No matter how much Dreamless Sleep Potion she took, someone would always come back to haunt her. If it wasn’t Bellatrix, it was Voldemort. If it wasn’t Voldemort, it was her parents- dead. If it wasn’t her parents, it was Harry’s crumpled corpse. There were so many ways they could have lost the war, so many ways the people she loved could have died. They were all lucky. So fucking lucky. 

And all she could think of was what would happen if they had lost.

She figured that they might as well have. If they had lost she would be dead, at the very least. And she wouldn't be free of the war until she was dead. There was nothing she could do now. No matter how hard she tried to occlude it all, it would all come crashing back to her, like a wave of pain and fear racking her body. 

That particular night she’d had one of the worse nightmares. It was Bellatrix’s eyes. Her eyes, always the eyes. Never her face. She could see her own reflection in Bellatrix’s eyes—it was like feeling the pain all over again.

Hermione swallowed the lump in her throat as she stared down the side of the tower. This was the only way to save herself. She was afraid of everything. She was afraid to sleep, afraid of her friends, afraid of her own fucking reflection. She was afraid that Harry would get hurt, and Voldemort would return. She was afraid that if she didn’t die soon, someone would come back and torture her all over again. That it would happen again. That she would have to fight to save the world again. And she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t face it. 

“It’ll happen again every damn night if you don’t jump,” Bellatrix’s voice whispered in her head. “Stupid girl. What makes you think I’d ever leave someone as fun as you?” The phantom voice laughed. She’d learned rather quickly after the war that not only would the thoughts of her torturers haunt her, but also their voices. When people called her name, it was like Nagini was whispering in her ear. When she was reading, she could hear Bellatrix repeating the words to her. 

She couldn’t escape it. She’d never be able to. 

She shouldn’t jump. She knew that if she jumped that that would be it. She would be dead—gone forever. But every night since that day in Malfoy Manor the only thing she could think of was how nice it would be to die. To not see Bellatrix’s eyes every time she closed her own.

Harry would know what to do. If she went and found him he would help her. But Harry was already in pieces without her problems but he, at least, was doing better than she was. Everyone was doing better than she was. She, for once in her life, felt excruciatingly, completely, and utterly alone. For once in her life, she didn’t know what to do.

She was alone in her own head. The only company she had was herself, being tortured to the brink of insanity. 

She was a coward for jumping. She should face her fears, like everyone else was doing. But she couldn’t. She had been facing her fears for months. She had been pushing back every night, every day, every hour, every second.

She would be dead anyway. Yes, her friends would be sad, she knew that it would only hurt them more, but fuck them all. They didn’t have to be tortured again night after night. And they wouldn’t talk to her about the war anyway.

Hermione took a deep breath and lifted her right foot off the edge of the tower. This was where Dumbledore had died. And this was where she would too. She knew Ginny would cry, Harry would scream. Ron would be heartbroken. 

He’d get over it. They all would.

She lifted her arms out to her sides, feeling the slight wind rush past her, foot dangling lightly over the edge. 

It was just a small hop. A little jump and she could finally be free of every person, every voice, every damn thing that haunted her.

She leaned forward, her eyes gently fluttering shut. She would finally be free. And all she had to do was lean forward. 

And she did.

She was falling.

But it was backwards instead of forward, backwards away from the sweet release of death, backwards towards the hellish life she’d nearly escaped from. Her eyes flew open as she fell to safety, bracing for the impact of the cold stone she was bound to fall on.

She felt two arms grab her by the waist as her body fell. A person, who’d grabbed her, immediately pinned her arms behind her back, trying to keep her from scrambling away.

“No!” she screamed. “No stop! Let me go!”

She kicked as much as she could but the arms only pulled her in tighter. They were strong. She could feel muscle straining to keep her close. 

She dug her heels into the ground trying to push herself up and scramble away, but the person only held her tighter.

“It’s alright. It’s alright. I know it’s hard right now but I promise you, it will get better.” It was a boy. She could tell that much. She recognized the voice faintly, but she couldn't put her finger on it. His voice was soothing, she noticed.

 _“He’s trying to keep you from killing yourself, of course he’s trying to be soothing,”_ Voldemort whispered in her ear.

“Let me go!” She yelled, squirming in the person's grip. “Im jumping! I’m doing it! Tell who you like, but it’s happening right now whether you like it or not!” It didn’t matter who she was talking to. She was ending it. Tonight. She would take the boy with her if she had to. 

“I know it feels like you have to, but trust me, it’ll get easier. Just calm down, we can talk about it or we can go and fetch someone else to talk about it with.”

She relaxed for a moment, letting her muscles rest. The boy loosened his grip on her, probably assuming she'd calmed down. Perfect. She reared back, kicking him in the shins as hard as she could.

“Ow, shit! Look, I’m not too happy about being alive myself, right now, but I can’t stand by and watch someone end their life. That seems a bit immoral and that's coming from me.”

Hermione got one of her arms free and swung it blindly behind her in an attempt to hit her captor. He dodged and grabbed her arm, shoving her forward just enough to pin it behind her back again. 

“What I do with myself is none of your fucking business! If I want to jump, I can jump!” She yelped as he caught her legs under his own, effectively pinning her to the floor. 

“Hey! I’m trying to help you here. I know you’re scared but it’ll get better with time.” He told her, still struggling to hold her down. “I promise you. It seems like this is the only way right now but it’ll just… take a little time.” 

“I’ve taken time! I’ve taken so much fucking time but I can’t stand to do it anymore! No one understands! And the people who do, don't want to talk about it! At least,” Hermione panted, trying to hold back her tears which had appeared during her struggling, “they don’t want to talk about it with me.” 

She unwillingly let out a small sob.

It was painfully true. Ron always brushed off the topic of the war. He’d tell her to forget about it because it was in the past and they had to move on. And whenever she tried to talk to Harry he’d shut down. He’d say that he didn’t want to talk about the war, with anyone. Of course two days later she’d walk in on Harry crying on Ginny’s shoulder. She knew that it wasn’t fair of her to be mad at him for that.

But it stung a little.

“It’s going to get better. I promise. I know I keep saying that but I want you to know. It’ll be alright in the end. Please. Just stop struggling and we can talk about it. If no one else will listen to you, I’ll do it. It’ll be alright.”

A surge of emotions hit her like a wave at his words. “No it won’t! It won’t be alright! I can’t even close my eyes without seeing the whole fucking war replay right in front of me!” Everyone kept on telling her that it would be "alright". Everything was always going to be "alright". It always was. 

She knew it wouldn't be this time.

She felt the body behind her tense. The boy paused, calculating his next words. “I know how that feels.” he finally said, “It’s like seeing and feeling all the pain again, right? Just within a second?” The boy said.

She stopped struggling a little bit. “It hurts more than the actual war.”

There was a tense silence between the two of them. He loosened his grip a little, pulling her arms out from behind her back and letting her rest them at her sides.

“It helps to break stuff.” he said quietly.

Hermione squirmed a little bit more, causing him to tighten his hands around her wrists again.“It also helps to not be alive.”

He sighed, tightening his hands and arms around her even more. “And here I thought we were making progress.”

She was barely breathing, her chest hurt and her throat was dry and she was just trying to breathe. “Can you let go of my arms please?”

The boy snorted. “Oh yes of course! The girl who I just caught trying to jump off the astronomy tower, and then, after saving her, hit me multiple times in attempts to finish what she started.”

“You would if you were me.” She blinked, trying to get rid of her tears.

“I’d end my own life if I could but that would be far too satisfactory for the people who hate me.”

“Staying alive out of spite, I like that.”

“Well you would be the first.”

They sat in silence again. Her wrists still trapped in his hands and her legs still pinned under his. 

“You can cry you know,” he told her, shifting his legs a little bit.

“Why should I?” 

“Sometimes it helps to cry,”

She nodded against his chest. His chest… Who exactly was he? His voice seemed familiar but she couldn’t remember who it had belonged to? Maybe a Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff she  
had fought with during the war? That would make the most sense.

She turned her head to the left.

Her eyes widened.

So did Draco Malfoy’s.

Draco Malfoy. Draco Malfoy had just stopped her from killing herself. Malfoy, of all people. 

The irony.

He jolted up, dropping her limbs clumsily on the floor. He looked mortified, like maybe he’d just seen a demon. He might have actually preferred to see a demon judging by the way he dropped her on the floor.

It wasn’t like Hermione was doing much better. She just sat stationary on the floor of the astronomy tower, looking up at Draco Malfoy. He had just saved her from jumping to her own death. She had jumped off the Astronomy Tower, and then, had been caught and dragged down by Draco Malfoy before she even make it two feet. 

She stood up awkwardly, not quite sure what was happening. She couldn't very well just run and jump. She wanted to, but- well she couldn't just do that. Not with him standing there like that. 

But Malfoy just stood there completely still. He clearly hadn’t known it was her he had been saving. He just stared at her, probably contemplating what the hell he had just done. He must have assumed he was saving some girl who had just been having a bad day. She wondered if he—

No. No. No, don't think like that. He may be Draco Malfoy, but he wouldn’t regret saving someone's life. Even if it was her.

Neither of them spoke. They just stared at each other.

Never did she think that she would be standing in the Astronomy Tower in her pajamas with Draco Malfoy. Even without the circumstances of her trying to kill herself. She made the first move. She took a step backwards, moving to get out the astronomy tower as quickly as she could. Maybe this was all a dream? Maybe this was all some sick fucking dream that she was having and maybe she would wake up in her bed. She just had to get out of there and back to her dorms, it would be fine then. If she went back to her dorms, Draco Malfoy wouldn't know all of the stuff she had just told him. Why had she just told this random stranger? _"Because no one talks to you. You were so desperate for someone, that you told the first person who came your way."_

She did her best not to sprint to the door. 

“I um- Thanks. For uh- calming me down,” she said. Why was she thanking him? Why was she leaving? Her only goal moments ago was to kill herself and now she was planning on running back to her dorms and pretending this had never happened. _"You're insane that's why."_ "Hush!" she whispered under her breath to Bellatrix's voice.

Bellatrix- the _voice _was right. Her own thoughts were the only people she had to confine in. She only had herself to confine in, no wonder she was going insane.__

“Oh. Right. Anytime. Not anytime- I mean if you- I just meant-” Malfoy's voice pulled her out of her thoughts. 

Right. She was in the Astronomy Tower. With Draco Malfoy. She turned on her heels and sprinted out as fast as she could.

What the fuck had just happened?

* * *

Breakfast was almost over.

Granger hadn’t shown up yet.

She was probably dead. 

How had he just let her run out of the astronomy tower? He had, quite literally, just saved her life and then just let her run away. He should have walked her back to her common room and made sure she went to sleep. He should have woken someone up to keep an eye on her! He should have picked her up and dragged her to the hospital wing to keep her under watch. He should have followed her! At the very least to be sure that she went to bed. 

Now her corpse was probably lying on the ground somewhere. For some second year to find. She probably had gone and done it as soon as she'd left and- 

No. No! She wasn’t dead. She was probably just running late. Maybe she had just slept in a bit. She was most likely in her dorms, doing her best to get ready as fast as she could. She was with her friends in the common room, laughing and pretending like nothing had happened last night. She was just a little late.

But Hermione Granger was never late. 

He brought his hands up to his face and pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes. 

“You alright mate?” Blaise asked him from across the table, “You look like shit.”

Draco dropped his head onto the table. “I’m fine.”

Theo poked his arm, “You don’t seem fine.” Theo paused, poking Draco again. “Are you sexually frustrated?”

Draco turned his head, still on the table, and looked up at Theo, giving him his best glare.

“You know you love me,” Theo said, winking.

“I hate you.”

Theo gave him a bright smile and turned to Blaise. “Did you hear about the Bigonville Bombers? Apparently one of the beaters has been taking some muggle drug to make him  
stronger. They are deciding what to do...”

Draco stopped hearing Theo, leaving him alone with his own thoughts.

He couldn’t comprehend how his friends could be handling the aftermath of the war so well. They both seemed to have managed to not only accept their pasts, but move on. Draco was barely in the first stage. 

He hated himself. More than he had ever hated someone or something in his entire life. 

But he hadn’t exactly been telling the truth when he was talking to Granger last night. He would have liked to kill himself, yes, he figured that that would be easier for him and everyone else. 

But- well. If Draco were to kill himself he wouldn’t be much better than his father. 

Instead of facing his crimes, Lucius had taken a knife to his own throat.

When he’d learned of what his father had done, he’d decided, in that very moment, that he wouldn’t kill himself- as much as he wished too. He would and could become a better person, just to prove those assholes wrong. He wasn’t his father. He was stronger, he would and could be a better person.

He wasn’t his father.

Draco found it slightly comical that his only motivation to live was to prove he was better than his father. Not to re-establish the Malfoy name, he couldn’t care less about that. All he cared about has his one mission: to prove to the world, and to himself, that he wasn't, and wouldn’t ever be again, his father.

That was why he had been so forceful last night with Granger. He hadn't even known it was her. But he would have done it for anyone. 

But, it did make it more awkward that it _was_ her. He was probably the last person she wanted to be near. He was probably responsible for half of the trauma that she had endured. Him or his family.

Flashbacks of Bellatrix torturing her hit him- how he’d just sat there.

_You’re exactly like your father. He was a coward and so are you. You will never be better than him. In fact you’re probably worse._

Draco slammed his head on the table.

Blaise looked up from his eggs, “Something bothering you?”

“Sexually frustrated,” Theo muttered, taking another spoonful of porridge.

“I will kill you both,” Draco whispered under his breath.

“Don’t let the ministry get ahold of that. They’ll throw you in Azkaban before you can even pull your wand out,” Theo said, nudging Draco in the arm.

The doors of the Great Hall opened. 

His head shot up, hoping to see Granger rush through the door with her books shoved in her arms. Her hair would look absolutely insane and she would probably have her annoying nose in a book. Her robes would be open because she hadn’t had time to tie them earlier. She would walk over to Potter and Weasel and the three of them would then proceed to engage in some sort of argument about how next to save the world.

But it wasn’t her who walked through the doors.

Instead it was a group of Hufflepuffs and a slightly scattered looking Pansy Parkinson. She rushed over towards them and dropped herself and her books next to Blaise.

Draco looked over to the Gryffindor table, maybe he had missed her during his first twelve sweeps of the table. He did a head count: Potter, Weasel, Weaslette, and friends(whom he didn’t know the names of)- but no Granger. Draco slammed his head back onto the table.

“Morning,” Pansy said, pulling out a book. She looked over at Draco. “Why’s his head on the table?”

“He’s sexually frustrated.” Blaise said, leaning over Pansy to see what she was reading.

Draco kicked Blaise under the table. 

He heard the door open once again. A few first years ran in.

_She isn't going to come._

He had to find her.

_She isn’t yours to find. You don’t know her, she hates you, you’re supposed to hate her. It’s her life. It’s her choice. You tried last night, if she actually went through with it- well it isn’t your problem anymore._

Maybe she wasn’t dead yet. Maybe she was asleep in her dorms and people figured it was best to let her sleep in. She was probably still asleep. She was still asleep.

_She’s dead._

_She’s sleeping in._

_She’s dead._

_She’s asleep._

_She’s dead. And some first year will find her body, causing more pain and trauma, and more damage, and more lives ruined._

He had to get out of there.

Draco stood up from his place at the Slytherin table and started walking towards the door.

“Where are you going?” Theo asked him.

“I’ll see you in Potions,” Draco threw over his shoulder. He didn’t exactly know where he was planning on going, but it couldn’t be in the Great Hall. There were far too many reminders of Granger in that room. 

“You didn’t answer my question!”

Draco ignored his friend, turning the corner to leave the Great Hall. 

Today would be hard.


End file.
